"Picturing the Other"...

The photo shown above was taken in December 2009 It was minutes before the ball dropped on television in Times Square. Family and friends, adults and children alike, were waiting in excitement to put there glasses of champagne (sparkling apple cider for the children) into the air. In taking the picture, I wanted to show a candid photo of everyone before they were going to raise their glasses. When I was seconds before actually snapping the picture, some of my family and friends caught me aiming the camera at them and decided to raise their glass to pose for the picture. My assumptions affected my photo because I knew that I had the chance to catch people either talking or making silly faces if I had caught them unexpectedly while waiting for the countdown to the New Year to begin. It was taken at an angle higher then at eye’s level because I did not want people to notice so I shot my arm as high as it could go with my camera in hand, which gave the picture a slight angle downwards. It’s important to note that "the other" in this photo was dozens of family and friends before entering the New Year. Thus, if my family and friends had decided to take a photograph of me then they might want to catch me doing something unexpected also. If the tables were turned, they would find me snickering or laughing in the corner of the living room. I would guess their angle would be at eye-level and possibly distorted a little because of how much I would be moving as a result of the laughter.  A caption for the photo would depend on exactly who was taking it but if I had to guess if it was my brother it would say, "And she thinks that we are weird!” The only assumptions that my family and friends would have about this photo would be that I would certainly have been caught with silly faces because they would know when I laugh; I tend to get out of hand. This exercise would not necessarily change the way I take photographs, how I represent other, or what I assume when I snap pictures of other people. I would like to catch people unexpectedly because it gives me a way to represent them in a realistic setting without the redundancy of always asking them to pose for the picture. It gives me a new way to view how I could take pictures of others. I really enjoy pictures with scenery and I enjoy viewing time lapse in the background of pictures. I could opt to take multiple pictures within a certain time limit to view how the background changes as the pictures are taken continuously after the other. 

Blog Assignment #8 Digital Manipulation

 I altered my photo using the picnik.com website. I did not expect it to be so easy to alter my photo. The software allowed me to use tons of applications for free and I began experimenting with different effects. First, I used the insta-thin application on the software and it added a small weight loss appearance. A small change that could go unnoticed was that I whitened my teeth. This biggest alteration of my photo was the sketch effect, which made it look somewhat like a cartoon or a picture that could be added to a comic strip. There was an option to add more strength and I increased it to the maximum, which was 200% and I also increased the fade. I added rounded corners and a before and after caption at the bottom of each photo. I did not have to adjust any blemishes on my face or arms because when I changed it to a pencil sketch, the actual colors of the photo disappeared. Finally, I added a white butterfly design on the upper left hand corner to add some contrast. Overall, the effect I was trying to produce was to take away all the colors so that people could focus on other aspects than immediately what colors their eyes were drawn to initially. I also wanted my eyes to stand out in the photo. I also added the weight loss effect so that I could look thinner because I always seem to be unsatisfied with pictures because it does not flatter me at a certain angle. I understand that the media has its effects on me because I wanted to alter the picture so that others would think I looked prettier in the picture when in real life looking like this would be impossible. It also avoided looking too altered or put together by taking the colors out. If I would have added the touch-up effect to the photos, people may have been able to tell. Having pictures in the public and out there for people to judge allows for society to push people to only want to put photos up on social networking sites that are visually appealing. I tried to create that exact effect by altering aspects of my photo (such as my teeth or the weight loss effect) to fit into what society or my peers believe is beautiful.